Israel has carried out its deadliest day of strikes across the Gaza Strip since it shattered a ceasefire in mid-March. Israeli attacks killed at least 143 people since dawn on Thursday, according to health officials, bringing the documented death toll in Gaza to over 53,000 — though thousands more are missing under the rubble and presumed dead. One in five Palestinians — some half a million people — are facing starvation, according to the U.N., with Israel’s total blockade of food, water and medicine now in its 74th day.

In Khan Younis, 13-year-old Palestinian Reem al-Zanaty narrowly survived an Israeli strike that collapsed her family’s home. After her father pulled her from the rubble, she learned that many of her relatives were dead.

Reem al-Zanaty: “The entire family of my uncle has been martyred. May they rest in peace. How would one feel to see all their loved ones come out as remains from under the rubble? My cousin’s name is Menna. She’s one year younger than me. She was just with me yesterday night. I swear, she bid farewell to me and told me goodbye, as if she felt it.”

The head of the U.N. Children’s Fund, Catherine Russell, condemned Israel’s attacks, writing, “It is unconscionable that over 45 children have reportedly been killed in airstrikes in Gaza in two days. This should shock the world but is largely met with indifference. Nowhere is safe for children in Gaza.”

In the occupied West Bank, Israeli soldiers raided the Palestinian town of Tamoun Thursday, killing five men after laying siege to a home in the village center. One of the men apparently burned to death, according to Tamoun’s mayor. The deadly raid came after a pregnant Israeli from a nearby settlement was shot and killed. In response, Israel’s far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich called for nearby Palestinian towns to be “flattened” just as Israel has destroyed cities in the Gaza Strip.

On Capitol Hill, Congressmember Rashida Tlaib reintroduced a resolution Wednesday to recognize the Palestinian Nakba — or “catastrophe” — on its 77th anniversary. The Nakba commemorates the murder, dispossession and forced displacement of Palestinians during the formation of Israel. Tlaib’s resolution was co-sponsored by eight other congressmembers.

Rep. Rashida Tlaib: “There are days that I feel so alone in this chamber as the only Palestinian American serving in Congress. The dehumanization and the anti-Palestinian racism here is painful, especially when my colleagues remain silent on the starvation of children and vote to send more bombs to the Israeli government while they commit war crimes with impunity.”

President Trump has wrapped up his visit to the United Arab Emirates after touting over $200 billion in investment deals with the Gulf nation on the last leg of his Middle East tour. The latest deals include Emirati investments in artificial intelligence, including the construction of a major AI data center in Abu Dhabi, which would import U.S.-made AI chips, likely from the company Nvidia. Deals were also signed with Boeing and GE Aerospace. During his visit, Trump also referenced a promised $1.4 trillion investment from the UAE that he’d first announced in March.

Meanwhile, Democratic lawmakers in both the House and Senate issued resolutions of disapproval over $3.5 billion in weapons sales to the UAE and Qatar. The lawmakers cited conflict of interest concerns related to Trump’s cryptocurrency ventures, as well as the UAE’s support of Sudan’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces.

As he prepared to depart the UAE, President Trump said the U.S. has sent a proposal to Iran over a new nuclear deal after multiple rounds of talks between the two countries. Details of the plan remain unknown, and Tehran has refused U.S. demands that it give up its uranium enrichment program. Earlier this week, Iran’s president condemned Trump’s “bullying” after the U.S. president accused Iran of “sponsoring terror” and fighting “bloody proxy wars.” This is Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian.

President Masoud Pezeshkian: “When he says we have missiles and bombs that are unimaginable, are we causing a bloody war, or are you the ones who came to give bombs and missiles to the countries of the region? Who wants countries to fight each other by giving these weapons, bombs and missiles and then claims that 'We are peace-loving. We want peace to be implemented in society'? … Did we destroy 60,000 women and children in Gaza in a year under the bombs and missiles they had? Did we cut off their access to food, water and medicine? Are we a danger?”

In Turkey, negotiators from Ukraine and Russia are meeting today for the first direct peace talks since shortly after Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022. But expectations of major progress remain low after delays and uncertainty over whether the meeting would actually happen, and after Russian President Vladimir Putin refused to attend in person. On Thursday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy met Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, and Ukraine’s foreign minister met with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Also on Thursday, President Trump asserted, “Nothing is going to happen until Putin and I get together.”

Supreme Court justices heard oral arguments Thursday in a case stemming from Trump’s now-halted order to end birthright citizenship — which is guaranteed under the 14th Amendment. The Trump administration is challenging whether federal judges can issue universal, or nationwide, injunctions against his orders. The case is raising alarms the far-right-dominated Supreme Court could hand even more power to the executive branch as Trump seeks to overcome court injunctions against his many executive orders. This is Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson.

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson: “Your argument seems to turn our justice system, in my view at least, into a 'catch me if you can' kind of regime from the standpoint of the executive, where everybody has to have a lawyer and file a lawsuit in order for the government to stop violating people’s rights.”

The Department of Homeland Security has asked the Pentagon to assign some 20,000 National Guard personnel to assist with Trump’s mass deportation efforts. It’s not clear whether Trump would seek to federalize the National Guard — something last done to respond to the 1992 uprising in Los Angeles that followed the police beating of Rodney King.

In New Jersey, Newark Mayor Ras Baraka appeared in federal court Thursday over his trespassing case following his arrest last Friday outside the Delaney Hall immigration detention center, where he was meeting with three congressional Democrats. Alina Habba, who is the interim U.S. attorney for New Jersey and Donald Trump’s personal lawyer, faced boos from the crowd of Baraka supporters as she showed up for the brief procedural hearing.

Mayor Baraka said he had to resubmit to a mugshot and give fingerprints again Thursday as part of an attempt to humiliate him. Baraka’s trial is expected to take place in mid-July, a month after primary elections in New Jersey, in which he’s running for governor. Mayor Baraka spoke to journalists and supporters after his hearing.

Mayor Ras Baraka: “The Constitution of the United States, which gives everybody due process, no matter who you are, no matter what language you speak, no matter what your background is, what your gender is or who you decide to love, that the Constitution protects everybody. Once you step foot on this soil, once you reside in this country, whether you’re documented or not, the Constitution protects you.”

New York University has come under fire for withholding the diploma of a student who used his commencement address to condemn the genocide in Gaza. This is Logan Rozos delivering that speech on Wednesday.

Logan Rozos: “The only thing that is appropriate to say in this time and to a group this large is a recognition of the atrocities currently happening in Palestine. … The genocide currently occurring is supported politically and militarily by the United States. It’s paid for by our tax dollars and has been live-streamed to our phones for the past 18 months.”

Logan Rozos received cheers and standing ovations from his crowd of peers and has been widely commended for his bravery.

This comes as students at Yale, Stanford, UCLA and the California State University system are continuing their hunger strikes to demand their schools divest from Israel and protect free speech on campus. Students have reported deteriorating health as school administrators continue to rebuff requests to meet.

In related news, a new study finds more than 1,000 students across the U.S. were targeted — many of them penalized — over their speech between 2020 and 2024.

In Georgia, a pregnant woman who’s been declared brain dead has been kept on life support for three months, against the wishes of her distraught family, because of the state’s abortion ban. Adriana Smith, a 30-year-old mother and nurse, has been legally dead since February following a medical emergency. But doctors have kept her on breathing machines because her fetus, just 9 weeks old at the time of Smith’s medical emergency, was old enough to have detectable cardiac activity. Adriana Smith’s mother said, “It’s torture for me. I see my daughter breathing, but she’s not there.”

​Some 450 New Jersey Transit engineers walked off the job early this morning, grinding services to a halt on the country’s third-largest commuter rail system. It’s New Jersey’s first statewide transit strike in over four decades. The president of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen said, “They have money for penthouse views and pet projects, just not for their front-line workers. Enough is enough.”